Rava Mixed Vegetable Upma With Eastern’s Green Jackfruit Flour

Breakfast yesterday was rava (semolina) mixed vegetable upma, cooked with some green jackfruit flour. Yes, you read that right. 🙂 Eastern Condiments has recently come up with a revolutionary product, called the Jackfruit 365 Green Jackfruit Flour, which I was sent a sample of for testing and review.

About Eastern’s Green Jackfruit Flour

Eastern’s Jackfruit 365 Green Jackfruit Flour is made from mature green jackfruit, just 2-4 days before it turns sweet. It has a neutral taste and a creamy white colour, with none of the aroma of a ripe jackfruit. Green jackfruit apparently possesses a number of nutrients and health benefits, most of which are retained in this flour. I hear there is no post-processing involved, and that there are no preservatives or flavouring agents added to the flour.

Health benefits of green jackfruit (and flour)

Here’s a glimpse of some of the advantages that green jackfruit (and the resultant flour) have to offer:

Helps in weight loss and weight management: A cup of green jackfruit has less than half calorie of two rotis and much lower than a cup of rice, but offers higher satiation due to higher fibre and water content. So, you end up feeling sated for longer, with fewer calories. It is, therefore, a great help in weight loss and weight management.

Aids in controlling diabetes: Unlike ripe jackfruit, green jackfruit is great for diabetes. Through clinical trials conducted at Sydney University’s Glycemic Index Research Service (SUGiRS), it was found that green jackfruit has a much lower glycemic load (increase in sugar/blood glucose level) than rice and wheat. So, when you replace a cup of rice or two rotis with a cup of green jackfruit, your blood glucose will not increase as much.

Adds years to your life: Jackfruit, due to low acidity, is the only fruit that can be consumed as a meal, replacing your regular carbohydrate like wheat and/or rice in full or part. As per a study by the National Health Service, UK, the low consumption of vegetables and fruits can shorten life more than lack of exercise. So, when we cook and consume green jackfruit in a meal, the quantity consumed in one meal itself is more than the vegetable and fruit we consume in a whole day, thereby aiding longevity.

Helps in lowering cholesterol: The percentage of soluble fibre in jackfruit reaches its peak when the fruit is at the mature green stage. Soluble fibre obtained from fruits is the most superior quality of this nutrient, which helps in the removal of cholesterol from your body. This green jackfruit flour is, therefore, definitely a better, native and responsible alternate to the oats we import from Australia.

Prevents colon cancer: Green jackfruit possesses a high amount of insoluble fibre, much higher than what you can get from rice or roti. It therefore aids good bowel movement, and in preventing constipation. Also, the fibre content acts like a bottle-brush to cleanse your intestines, preventing the occurrence of colon cancer.

How can you add green jackfruit flour in your daily diet?

Eastern’s Jackfruit 365 Green Jackfruit Flour can be used in most traditonal Indian dishes, without any change in taste or texture, but with all the nutrients and health benefits discussed above, intact. This product can replace 1/3 of the quantity of rice in dishes like idli, dosa, appam and puttu, and the same quantity of wheat in dishes like roti, paratha and poori.

Price and availability

At the moment, Eastern’s Jackfruit 365 Green Jackfruit Flour is sold only on Amazon India and in select stores in Kerala. Soon enough, though, the product is likely to be available in a number of cities across India.

A 200-gram packet of the flour costs INR 65.

How I used the green jackfruit flour in rava vegetable upma

I included Eastern’s Jackfruit 365 Green Jackfruit Flour in the preparation of a regular breakfast dish at our place – rava (semolina) mixed vegetable upma. I substituted a little of the rava with the green jackfruit flour, and found no change in the texture or flavour of the dish. In fact, the upma turned out absolutely scrumptious!

Here’s how I made the upma.

Ingredients (serves 4):

1-1/2 cups Bansi sooji/rava/semolina

1/4 cup Eastern’s Jackfruit 365 green jackfruit flour

Salt, to taste

3 green chillies, slit length-wise

A few fresh curry leaves

1 medium-sized onion, chopped finely

A few sprigs of fresh coriander, chopped finely

1 small carrot, peeled and chopped finely

1/2 of a medium-sized capsicum, chopped finely

1/4 cup shelled green peas

A small piece of cabbage, chopped finely

2 small tomatoes, chopped finely

4 tablespoons oil

1 pinch of asafoetida (hing) powder

2 teaspoons mustard seeds (rai)

Method:

Dry roast the rava and green jackfruit flour together on medium flame, till they emit a nice fragrance and turn slightly brown. Transfer onto a plate, and let them cool down.

Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed pan, on high flame. Add the mustard seeds, and let them splutter. Add the asafoetida, and let it stay in for a couple of seconds.

Now, add in the chopped onion, cabbage, capsicum and carrot, curry leaves, green peas, and slit green chillies. Add a bit of salt, and turn down the flame to medium. Cook, stirring intermittently, till the veggies are done, but not overly so. Sprinkle some water at intervals, if you feel the veggies are beginning to stick to the bottom of the pan.

Add 5-1/4 cups of water, the chopped tomatoes, and more salt to taste. Keeping the flame medium, bring the water to a boil.

Add in the roasted rava and green jackfruit flour. Stir well, ensuring that everything is well incorporated together.

Cook on medium flame, stirring intermittently, till all the water has been absorbed. At this stage, the rava and flour should be well cooked.

Mix in the finely chopped fresh coriander.

Serve hot with chutney of your choice. I made balls out of the upma, for the sake of presentation, and served them with a sweet-and-sour green turkey berry (sundakkai, in Tamil) relish.

Notes:

To make rava upma, we use 3 cups of water per cup of rava. Here, for 1-1/2 cups of rava + 1/4 cup of green jackfruit flour, I have used 5-1/4 cups of water totally.

The proportion of water used here will yield an upma that isn’t too dry, but well cooked. If you’d like a drier version, reduce the quantity of water you use.

Increase the number of green chillies you use, if you want to up the spice level.

Ordinary white rava can be used in place of Bansi rava.

You can use any other vegetables that you might have handy, to make the upma.

To add a twist of taste to the upma, you can add any of these: tamarind paste, lemon juice, sugar, rasam powder, garam masala. Let your imagination run wild!

My thoughts about Eastern’s Jackfruit 365 Green Jackfruit Flour

The flour was quite easy to use, thanks to detailed instructions on the back of the package. I didn’t face any difficulties in making the upma – I cooked it pretty much the same way I would cook rava vegetable upma, just with the addition of the green jackfruit flour to it.

I think this is a great way to add green jackfruit to your daily diet, and hope to continue using it regularly. After all, it blends in seamlessly with most of the Indian dishes we make at home. I would recommend you try this out, too.

I feel the product is quite reasonably priced, too.

I appreciate the fact that a recipe booklet was included within the package, considering that this is a very new product and that people might need some guidance on what dishes it can be used in. The booklet, however, was entirely in Malayalam, a language I cannot read and write. If the product is to be available in multiple cities in India soon, the recipes should be translated into other languages too, for people to be able to use them.

This is not a paid post. I was sent a free sample of the product to test and review, and the post is based on my observations while using it. The views expressed herein are entirely my own, not influenced by anything or anyone. The health information provided in the post are courtesy of Mr. James Joseph, Founder, Jackfruit 365.